From the Heart
by Katyakora
Summary: Guys,' Ezekiel broke the silence in an uncharacteristically serious whisper. 'I think the notes are flirting with me.' A stationery mix up throws a lot of feelings out in the open.


'-though the original craftsman is unknown, the engraving style and techniques used are distinctive enough that it's been linked to several other pieces from the same period. They're all believed to be, if not made, at least designed by the same person.' Jake rattled off as he jotted the relevant information onto the notepad Cassandra had handed him. He ripped off the page to tack it to the corkboard and Ezekiel idly plucked the notepad from his hand and began scribbling. Their back-and-forth brainstorming had become a familiar routine for a while now.

'Yeah, the last private owner was the first to gather all the known pieces into a single collection. It's only since that collection was split up that weird stuff started happening.' He ripped his page from the pad. 'Here's a list of the galleries and museums I know of that parts of the collection have moved through. I can look into them and see if anything sticks out.'

Cassandra took the page he handed her to stick to the board, only to pause and frown when she glanced at it.

'This doesn't look like a list…' she murmured slowly. She looked up at Ezekiel. 'And why is you're handwriting fuzzy?'

'What? It's not fuzzy.' He slapped the page where Cassandra had written the dates of the strange occurrences. 'Yours is bloody fuzzy!'

'Wait, guys…' Jake interrupted, stepping closer to the board and squinting at it. 'Is it just me, or are the words moving?'

'Yeah,' Cassandra agreed softly. 'They are.'

'What the hell?' Ezekiel muttered.

'What are you guys talking about?' Baird asked, striding into the room. Despite the LITs now working largely on their own, she still liked to check in from time to time. She stepped up to the board, taking in the information. 'It's all just dates and lists.' She spoke as though it was completely obvious and her brow creased in confusion at the LITs strange behaviour.

Turning to look at them she was met with three identical looks of shock, two white as a sheet and one blushing furiously.

Silence reigned as Baird looked back and forth between the stunned librarians and their entirely mundane notes, looking increasingly concerned.

'Guys,' Ezekiel broke the silence in an uncharacteristically serious whisper. 'I think the notes are flirting with me.'

'With _you?!_ ' Jake and Cassandra said in unison.

'OK, what the hell is going on with you guys?' Baird asked with a long-suffering sigh. She was starting to regret dropping in on them. Jake scowled and ripped a page of the board, shoving it at Baird.

'What does this say to you?'

'It looks like a list…of museums?' she replied slowly.

'That's not what I see,' Cassandra insisted emphatically.

'Me either,' Jake agreed, his tense shoulders jerking in a sharp shrug.

'No, that's my list.' All eyes turned to Ezekiel.

'That looks like normal case-notes to you?' Jake pressed. Ezekiel nodded.

'These, on the other hand,' He flicked a finger at the other pages, 'Not so much.'

'OK,' Baird took a deep breath, resigning herself to helping resolve the weird. 'What you wrote looks completely normal to you. And it's the same for you two?' She looked to the other two librarians, who both nodded. 'But to everyone else who was in the room when you wrote it, it looks like something else?' Again, they nodded. 'So, what do they say that freaked you all out so much?'

All eye contact instantly ceased, and all three looked decidedly pink in the cheeks. She stood akimbo, giving them her no-nonsense glare. 'Well?' Still, nobody answered. She ground her teeth. 'No volunteers? Fine.' She tacked the page in her hand back onto the board, arranging it so the papers were now in a rough line. She jabbed her finger at the one on the left, which bore Cassandra's handwriting.

'Stone,' she ordered, 'what does this say to you?' The cowboy groaned.

'I don't wanna say,' he ground out finally.

'Well, why not?' Baird was clearly getting frustrated with their continual reticence. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking, of all things, embarrassed.

'It just seems kinda personal.' He gave another rough shrug. 'Like it's for my eyes only, y'know?'

'Be that as it may, something weird and magical is clearly going on. And it just so happens that fixing the weird and magical is our job, which we can't do without all the facts. So…?' Sighing deeply, Jake's shoulders slumped and he stepped closer to the bored. He made a show of clearing his throat, clearly stalling. Finally, he spoke.

' _Your presence is a warm that I crave. I feel as though it is a gift I never knew I had or wanted until it was shattered in my selfishness. I long to kindle the light within you that my sins snuffed out.'_

A moment of stunned silence followed his speech.

'That's not what I wrote!' Cassandra squeaked, looking utterly mortified. Eve's eyebrows were flirting with her hairline, but she collected herself and looked to Ezekiel.

'Your turn, Jones.' Ezekiel's amused smirk dropped, but he dutifully took Jake's place in front of the board to begin reciting.

' _I can't help but contemplate your hands, their pure strength and finesse refined by your trade. I lose myself in contemplation of what those hands might do to my senses.'_

Eve couldn't help but give Cassandra a contemplative look.

'I didn't write that!'

'All right,' Eve raising her hands in a placating gesture. She then pointed to the middle page, Ezekiel's. 'What do you see Cassandra?' The redhead twisted the hem of her sweater between her fingers in a clearly nervous gesture.

'Are you sure you wanna hear it?' Baird nodded. 'All right…ahem'

' _Your purity and trust are like a beacon I cannot resist. And yet when I dream of you, I conjure thoughts of your inner darkness, and how I might draw out just a taste of it.'_

'Seriously?!' Ezekiel burst out after her words had sunk in. 'Even if I did want write something like that, there is no way it would sound that bloody poncy!'

'Yeah, it really doesn't sound like you,' Cassandra agreed quietly, looking almost disappointed under her blush. Eve ignored them both, turning now to Jake.

'Stone?' she prompted.

'Do I have to?' he whined. She just glared. 'Fine.'

' _I could listen to you speak for hours. Your whole being ignites when discussing your passions. The timbre of your voice makes me shiver with thoughts of what you might whisper to me in the dark.'_

The last part was hurried, as Jake had clearly becoming more self-conscious as he spoke. Baird allowed them a moment for the words to sink in, before pointing to the last page.

'Oh, come on, do we have to?' Jake burst out. 'We already know somethin' weird's goin' on!'

'Cassandra?' Eve said firmly, ignoring him. Resigned, Cassandra stepped forward to recite.

' _Flecks of copper. Shining curls of carnelian. I've yet to lay eyes on a masterpiece that can compare to your vibrance. Though I have felt how you burn, I am ever the moth to your flame.'_

She ducked back quickly, hiding her blush behind the cascade of her hair. With a sigh of annoyance, Ezekiel stepped up, unprompted.

' _Brash and young, so full of life, your cocksure smile is an endless distraction. You are the picture of the no-good, dashing rogue, and I ache to map the contours of your face with my fingertips.'_

'OK, enough!' Jake demanded. 'Any idea why our notes are giving us creepy compliments no one else can see?' He looked at each of them in turn, but it was clear they were all drawing a blank. The room descended into awkward and confused silence.

It was then Jenkins chose to enter the room. He paused, registering the odd atmosphere. His eyes skimmed the scene before him, only to stop the moment he spotted their notepad. He fixed them with his patented annoyed glare, marching angrily over to them.

'Do you people have respect for anything?!' he demanded, snatching the notepad from where Ezekiel had tossed it down onto the desk.

'What did we do now?' the thief groaned. Jenkins looked incredulous.

'Seriously? You were just using the Libro de Corda as _scrap paper!_ '

'Wait, wait,' Jake interrupted, looking a little disturbed. 'Libro de Corda? As in the Book of Hearts?'

Rolling his eyes, Jenkins flipped the cover closed. It was bound in plain, dark red leather with a simple, anatomically correct heart embossed in the centre of the front cover.

'This book once belonged to the entity known as Aphrodite. It was a gift from her brother, Eros. The pages are made from thousands of years' worth of love letters. No matter what you write in it, if the one you love reads it, they'll read not what you've written, but what your heart wants to say.'

'What?!' Three voices chorused, but Jenkins just continued talking.

'It is a surprisingly dangerous artefact, and NOT to be wasted scribbling research notes on!'

The librarians traded fearful, vulnerable glances before quickly breaking eye contact. Eve, on the other hand, had an amused, if perplexed, smile growing on her face.

'Please tell me it's broken,' Ezekiel implored him suddenly. Jenkins narrowed his eyes suspiciously at him.

'No…its not broken.' His gaze flicked momentarily between the three of them. His eyebrows shot up suddenly. 'Oh.'

'Jenkins, why don't you show me where that book is kept, so this doesn't happen again?' Baird suggested suddenly, giving the caretaker no choice as she gripped his elbow and led him out of the room.

'Yes, of course,' he agreed quickly, gladly following her lead.

The three librarians sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, until Ezekiel inevitably broke it.

'Seriously? My hands?' he asked a little incredulously, examining his flexing appendages as though searching for the appeal.

'Seriously? My _voice_?' Jake countered before Cassandra could stutter out a reply.

'Hey, I challenge anyone not to get a little shivery when you do that growly "I'm dangerous" voice you do when you annoyed.'

'I don't have an "I'm dangerous" voice,' Jake growled.

'Actually, he's right,' Cassandra admitted. 'You just did it.'

'See?' Ezekiel smirked, noticing for the first time the way Jakes eyes flicked to lips for the barest moment.

'How is this even possible?' Cassandra groaned as she sank heavily down into a chair. Jake looked at her thoughtfully, his mind ticking over.

'Do you remember a couple of weeks ago? When you asked me what…what it felt like?' he couldn't quite bring himself to use the L word just yet. She nodded in response. 'Was this why?' He gestured vaguely between the three of them.

'Yeah,' she admitted. 'It was…more than a little confusing.' She looked at them both earnestly. 'And I never thought in a million years that something like "this" might be possible.'

'You and me both,' Ezekiel agreed emphatically.

'I mean, how would that even work?' She sounded genuinely baffled, although the two males couldn't help but imagine the potential physical logistics in lurid detail. They shared an awkward glance, noting each other's heated cheeks and equally heated gaze.

'It's a moot point anyway,' Ezekiel stated abruptly with a shrug.

'It is?' Cassandra didn't quite manage to keep the disappointment out of her voice. Jake also looked to him to elaborate.

'Look, even I know you don't screw the crew. We're a good team. No, we're a great team and I'm not about to screw that up by bringing…feelings into it.' He crossed his arms, looking at them as though that was clearly the end of it.

'It's a little bit late for that,' Jake scoffed.

'Maybe before we were fine,' Cassandra added, 'but we didn't know. Now every time I look at you guys, I'm gonna be worrying about whether Jake's trying to figure out the exact shade of my hair, or if you're daydreaming about my dark side.'

'She's got a point,' Jake conceded. 'Hell, I'm getting self-conscious every time I goddamn talk.'

'This is crazy,' Ezekiel scoffed. ' I know this probably isn't the weirdest relationship in the history of existence, but we have no idea how this would even work, if it would at all.' He paused, looking back and forth between them, a hint of fear in his eyes. 'You guys are actually considering this, aren't you?' They looked at each other and then back at him. He could practically hear his resolve crumble under the weight of their twin gazes. 'Where would we even start?'

'Dinner?' Cassandra suggested, a bundle of nervous hope. 'My place, at 8? I'm making enchiladas.'

'I can do dinner,' Jake agreed, a smile growing on his face. Ezekiel sighed, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

'Sounds great. I'll bring dessert.'


End file.
